


Burn

by Kalanon (Kalael)



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Community: rotg_kink, Gen, Mentions of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalael/pseuds/Kalanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink meme fill.</p><p>Jack makes an unexpected admission during a fight with Pitch, and the implications are not easy for the Guardians to swallow.</p><p>(In which a 300 year old child discusses his existential crisis)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was sort of quickly written, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

It takes twenty years for Pitch to regain a fraction of his power, and the first thing he does is go after Jack Frost. The Guardians had learned from their previous mistakes, knowing to keep in touch with each other in order to avoid being picked off one by one, but Jack Frost is too used to working alone to change a 300 year old habit in a few scant decades. All Pitch needs to do is follow the wind, crossing an ocean in the shadows of the waves and flitting beneath the trees of great forests. Jack is spreading frost in Wales, taking great pleasure in confusing the sheep, and Pitch snorts at how unchanged he is.

“Still playing games alone? I thought you had your little believers now, Frost, or have they forgotten you so soon?” He can still hear fear, little whispers that twine around their bodies, and though Jack is strong-willed Pitch can almost taste his fear of being alone again. He smiles as Jack turns to face him with feigned nonchalance.

“Didn’t you get eaten alive by your own fear?” Jack asks. He’s not sure why Pitch is here and he holds his staff slightly behind him, because the last time they met alone had ended badly due to his own carelessness.

“I _am_ Fear.” Pitch bites out, and because he knows that the other Guardians will find a way here some way or another, he strikes without warning. Jack is lucky to deflect that first hit with an icicle but after that it’s not a game. Pitch is serious about fighting and Jack finds himself struggling to keep his ground.

As Pitch anticipated, the news of an unexpected snowstorm in Wales draws the other Guardians to them. He wants their attention, wants to kill Jack before their eyes, wants to see them break down and fear him.

What happens in the end is unexpected.

Jack is frosted over, some sort of natural defense in response to being attacked, and Pitch’s scythe grows closer and closer with each parried blow. Tooth lets out a cry as the blade narrowly misses Jack’s skin, scraping away snowflakes. Bunnymund runs forward with the intent of pulling Jack out of harm’s away, but Jack is distracted by their appearance and doesn’t see the scythe coming down until it’s too late.

Pitch laughs triumphantly as the blade buries itself in Jack’s chest, the tip coming out of his back. Jack’s expression is surprised but not pained and North wails as if he’s the one who’s been skewered. Tooth and Bunny freeze where they are and Sandy reaches out to Jack with tiny hands, his eyes wide and mouth twisted in agony.

Jack just laughs.

Pitch finds himself strangely horrified as Jack leans off the scythe, leaving no blood behind, only water. “You can’t kill me.” Jack taunts, and there’s something dark in his eyes and the way that he smiles. “I know, I’ve tried.” The skin beneath Jack’s torn sweatshirt is stitching itself up, the frost over his body receding to that one point. The only sign that there was ever a wound are the two holes in his sweatshirt, soaked with water.

Pitch takes advantage of the ensuing silence to retreat into the shadows and then it’s just Jack and the rest of the Guardians standing in the middle of a snowy field. Somewhere in the distance a sheep bleats, and Jack shifts awkwardly as the pain finally hits him. North exchanges glances with Sandy, then pulls out a snowglobe and opens a portal to the workshop.

“Come.” He says, holding out a hand to Jack. “We must talk.”

Jack doesn’t argue. He floats over to the others and lets Bunny tug him through to North’s office.

He knows they don’t want to talk about Pitch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I listened to Burn by Ray Lamontagne while writing this so if you're the sort that needs music to get in the mood, I'd suggest listening to that.

No one is speaking and it’s making Jack uncomfortable. He rocks back and forth on his feet and hugs his staff to himself, taking deep breathes because his chest is aching with residual pain. Sandy realizes that he’s hurting and gestures to the overstuffed couch by the window. For a moment Jack contemplates escape, but when Tooth moves to close the shutters he scraps the idea. He sits down and lets Sandy take his staff away, and when North comes over with an unneeded first aid kit he is touched by their concern.

The gratitude is swiftly put out when North makes an attempt to grab the hem of his sweatshirt. 

“You know, I’m totally fine.” Jack protests, folding in on himself. “See, no blood! Not even a scar!” North and Tooth eye the massive tear in the front of his sweatshirt with suspicion and Bunnymund huffs.

“C’mon Jack, just let us check. For our own peace of mind.” Jack opens his mouth to protest but Bunny shoots him a poisonous look and Sandy waves golden sand threateningly over his head. With trembling hands, Jack grabs the hem of his sweatshirt and pulls it up and off. Tooth realizes that they have never seen him without his shirt before. There turns out to be a reason for that.

Jack’s shoulders are marked with shiny scars and if Bunny’s reaction is anything to go by, those scars continue onto his back. North recognizes the type of wound those were made by and he reels backwards into Sandy, who is looking sadly at Jack’s guarded expression. Tooth’s hands are over her mouth as she holds in all the words that she’s too afraid to say. Jack defiantly makes eye contact with North, then seems to realize something and looks away.

“Why’re there burns on you, mate?” Bunnymund is the one to ask the question that no one else wants to bring up. Jack shrugs, trying to appear unaffected.

“Just old scars. You know why.” He doesn’t sound accusing, and his rather frank answer has Tooth flinching.

( _You can’t kill me. I know, I’ve tried._ )

No one says it out loud but it echoes in their thoughts. Jack swallows around the words that are stuck in his throat.

“Should seem obvious that a ghost can’t die.” He tries to smile but it’s crooked and weak and it falls off his face when no one laughs. He twitches with discomfort and pulls his legs up, clutching them to his chest and inadvertently revealing more of his back to Bunnymund, who makes a strangled noise.

“How?” North is the one asking the question this time and Jack can’t bear to look at him.

“Uh, turns out the whole frost healing thing doesn’t work very well on…burns.” It’s not the answer they are looking for and he knows it. Jack has been afraid of a lot of things in his long life, but he had never been so afraid of disappointing someone before. A tiny hand on his back breaks something inside him, and Jack chokes on his sudden tears. Sandy keeps his hand on Jack’s shoulder and Tooth’s hands immediately cup Jack’s cheeks, and the tears leave icy tracks on her fingertips.

They let him cry it out, a silent support system offering physical comfort, and Jack lets himself go for a little while because two hundred year old scars are a heavy burden to bear alone. When the tears are gone and Jack is laying on the laps of the other Guardians on the big couch, he takes a deep breath and allows Sandy to roll him onto his stomach so the others can fully see his burns.

The scars span from his shoulders to his lower back, shiny white and slightly raised. The pattern is splotchy where the damage is the worst but it fans into designs similar to Jack’s frost, eventually fading into his skin. It appeared that his body had been slowly healing the scars. Perhaps it is still healing. Bunnymund gently runs a paw on Jack’s spine and is relieved to find that it doesn’t cause Jack pain. They were old enough not to have left any sensitive nerve endings, but that realization doesn’t bring much comfort.

“It was the end of my first century.” Jack says quietly, startling them all. “I hadn’t met any of you guys yet. I hadn’t met anyone at all, actually, and I was going a little crazy. Or a lot of crazy. I guess that’s what solitary confinement is like. I thought I was being punished for something, and I got angry, so I found the hottest place I could and waited for the sun to come out. I thought I would just melt or something. I hoped I would.” He folds his arms under his head and closes his eyes as both Bunnymund and Sandy rub soothing circles onto his back. He’s scared, but not as scared as before. They hadn’t left him alone after finding out about the scars. He hopes they won’t leave him after this, either.

“I had to wait outside all morning before it started burning. It hurt.” Remembering it sends phantom pains down his spine but the hands on his back soothe it away. Jack glances up and finds Tooth looking at him with absolute love and concern, just like a mother would, and he feels courageous enough to finish it. “I really wanted to die. But even though the burns hurt, they couldn’t kill me. I went away, slept in the Antarctic for a while, gave up on trying to kill myself.” It was difficult to admit outright that he’d attempted suicide. In the heat of the battle with Pitch it had just slipped out, but in the company of his friends (family) he feels almost ashamed of himself.

“You don’t still feel like that, do you?” Tooth asks, hands carding through Jack’s hair. He shakes his head. “If you feel like that again, will you come to one of us?” Jack looks up sharply at that and sees the other Guardians staring very seriously at him, worry evident on their faces. He nods slowly and Tooth breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay. It’s going to be okay now. We have you, Jack.”

The reassurance sends a wave of relief through his body that makes him go limp. It’s not really okay, because the others are still trying to take in the fact that Jack had tried to commit suicide and bore the scars to prove it, but they really do have him now.

They just had to make sure he never had a reason to try it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sort of ended up going like Heartland did? But otherwise I think I wrote it in a fairly believable manner. Remember that it's been twenty years since Jack was appointed to Guardianship, so I'd think he would be a little more comfortable with everyone by then.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was:  
> i would like a fic where pitch is threatening to kill jack, and it's getting serious, when jack says "you can't kill me. i know, i've tried." what happens after that is up to the writer. i just want to see everyones reactions to him saying that


End file.
